The SCMHRD HR E-Conclave 2021

On August 5th, 6th, and 7th, 2021, SCMHRD hosted its second edition of the HR E-Conclave. A slew of HR leaders spoke on a variety of topics over three days. Five thought-provoking panel discussions were held over these days. The sessions added fresh dimensions to real-world HR principles. They assisted in bringing much-needed corporate exposure to SCMHRD students.

The conclave began on 5th august with the topic of discussion being "Reinventing Employee Experience in the New Normal." Mahafrid Billimoria, General Manager and Head-TAS at Tata Group HR, Prashant P, Employee Experience lead at Cargill, Tania Chatterjee, Director- Colleague Proposition, Inclusion, Wellbeing & Culture Lead at NatWest Group, Ruchira Garg, Senior Director- HR Services at VMware, and Kunal Chandra, Director- Total Rewards at Flipkart, were among those who contributed to the conversation, which was moderated by Vinita Sinha, Professor & HOD, HR SCMHRD. The discussion focused on how employee emotional well-being has developed from a "nice to have" to a "must-have" aspect and how their companies ensured that.

During the evening session, the students learned about the "Holistic Approach for Establishing a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Workforce". Aji George, Head- Organization Capability at Wipro, Parmesh Shahani, VP Head- D&I +, Godrej India Culture Lab at Godrej: Dheeraj Goyal, Group corporate HR Manager at ITC, Divya Seth-Gopal, Head HR-Talent acquisition and New Business at Marico was among the industry leaders who attended the session, which was moderated by Dr. Pratima Sheorey, Director, SCMHRD Pune. The conversation was on the emergence of diversity and inclusion (D&I) as an essential HR vertical, the necessity of having a diverse and inclusive workplace, and how these companies go about achieving so.

The second day was a star-studded affair, with a slew of HR specialists from well-known companies weighing in on the theme of "Data Becomes the New Currency: Acing People Analytics." The industry stalwarts who contributed to the discussion was Rishu Garg, CHRO at Rivigo, Anurag Shrivastava, Head of Total Rewards & HR Technology Transformation at Media.net, Balasubramanian Iyer, Head- Talent, Organization Development and HRBP Corporate Functions at Nivea, Apeksha Ahluwalia, Strategic Projects & HRBP Corporate Function Lead at Udaan, Vaishali Sabhahit, University Programs, Talent Operations, & Employer Branding Head at Adobe, and the session's moderator was Arpit Jain, HR Head at Airtel DTH. The session was eye-opening in terms of all the changes that the promising discipline of HR Analytics is bringing about in the workplace.

Two different panels discussed the topic "Ingredients of Futuristic Leadership: Lessons from the Past, Preparedness for Today, Tomorrow, and the Future" in the latter part of the second day. Chinmay Sharma, CHRO at GSK Pharma, Puneet Rajput, Senior HR Director at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Vivek Jain, Sr. Executive VP & Head HR at Kotak Mahindra Bank, Sanjay Shaw, HR Head- South Asia at Givaudan, and Ramesh Kumar, Head HR at Wells Fargo were among the industry professionals who contributed to the topic at hand.

Sulaksha Shetty, CHRO at Everest Industries, Ranjith TP, Director, Recruitment - APAC at Volvo, Tejas Gokhale, Head of HR, India at _VOIS, Ananthalakshmi Raghavan, Sr.Site HR Business Partner at PayPal, and Dr.Netra Neelam, Professor & Deputy Director, SCMHRD moderated the second panel on the subject. These were much-needed discussions, especially when everyone was reeling from the new office setup, especially at such odd times. The executives discussed how the epidemic had made the companies and their strategies more robust and humane.

The topic of discussion on the final day of the HR e-conclave was "The Future of HR: Promoting a Culture of Growth Mindset." The leaders who chipped in were Sumit Singh, HR Head - Lava International, Anil Misra, CHRO at Magicbricks, Manjula Rao, Vice President and Head HR at Firstcry.com, Amit Patil, HR Director, PSBU at Cummins, and Hitesh Khurana, Head - Talent Acquisition & Talent Management at Casio moderated the talk. Through the course of this session, the leaders explored HR's potential as a changemaker and how they could support a growing culture of enthusiasm and tenacity in their workplaces.

All the discussions were followed by a dedicated Q&A session during which the students got their questions answered by the leaders themselves. The three days provided the students with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about the intricacies of the HR industry. The event concluded on a high note, with great expectations for future editions.